The present invention is generally related to data backup systems, and more particularly to file identification and classification techniques for improved efficiency in data backup systems.
Techniques for improving the efficiency of data backup systems are known. For example, in an "incremental backup" only those files which have changed since the most recent backup operation are saved. Changed files are identified by techniques such as comparing the modification date associated with each file with a record of modification dates stored during the previous backup. While this technique is more efficient than saving every file on the system during each backup operation, substantially less effort would be required if other files could be identified and excluded from the backup operation.